Heretofore various cameras and camera systems have been proposed for imaging, photographing or recording data in the form of light areas and dark areas on a photosensitive medium with the light and dark areas corresponding to information data in binary form, i.e., the dark areas or dots and the light areas corresponding to 1's and 0's (or 0's and 1's).
Such photosensitive medium or negative or positive can then be used as a data record carrier itself or can be used as a mask for the printing of data record carriers therefrom which can have transparent or translucent and opaque areas, e.g., opaque background and transparent dots, or reflective and non-reflective areas such as reflective background and non-reflective areas or dots.
Examples of cameras or photographic systems for optically recording data on a photosensitive medium are disclosed in the following U.S. patents:
______________________________________ U.S. PAT. NO. PATENTEE ______________________________________ 3,179,924 Auyang et al. 3,198,880 Toulon 3,330,182 Gerber et al. 3,501,586 Russell 3,564,120 Taylor 3,624,284 Russell 3,765,743 Reaves et al. 3,806,643 Russell 3,898,629 Westerberg 3,983,317 Glorioso 4,094,010 Pepperl et al. 4,094,013 Hill et al. ______________________________________
An early example of a photographic data storage system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,179,924. Here digital data in the form of light areas and dark areas is stored on a strip of film 10.
Then, a photographic disk reproduction system for television signals is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,198,880 and a device for exposing discrete positions of a photosensitive surface to a variable density light beam is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,330,182.
Further, it has been proposed in the Russell U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,586 to provide dots of data in a spiral track on a photosensitive medium in an analog to digital to optical photographic recording and playback system. The later Russell U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,624,284 and 3,806,643 disclose similar optical systems for encoding binary type data on a medium.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,564,120 it is proposed to provide an image construction system with arcuately scanning drop generators wherein an image to be reproduced is repetitively optically scanned along successive arcuate lines and the density variations are converted to transmittable digital signals.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,629 directed to an apparatus for scanning a data record medium, there is disclosed a binary data recording system for recording binary information in the form of dots on a photographic film using a laser which directs a laser beam through a modulator. The modulated beam is transmitted through a hollow shaft to a mirror which directs the light outwardly in a hollow arm which is rotated about the axis of the hollow shaft and which has at the end thereof another mirror for reflecting light into a light path which is parallel spaced from the axis of the hollow shaft and which light path moves in a circular or arcuate path about the axis of the hollow shaft. With this arrangement, binary information can be printed on a photographic plate which is movable toward and away from the axis of rotation of the hollow shaft.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,317 discloses an astigmatizer for a laser recording and reproducing system where data in the form of grooves are formed by a laser in concentric recording tracks on a disk.
Other optical data recording systems for an optical multichannel digital disk storage system and/or for an optical storage disk system with disk track guide sectors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,094,010 and 4,094,013.
Still further, laser systems for recording data in digital format on a digital record such as a photographic plate or reflective plate is disclosed on page 30 of the August, 1979 issue of "LASER FOCUS".
The camera of the present invention utilizes a laser and modulator with the laser beam being directed through a hollow shaft to a mirror in a manner somewhat similar to the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,629.
However, as will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the camera of the present invention includes a light beam shaping a focusing assembly for creating a light beam image bar that forms a building block for building rectangular or square half cells or full cells which are utilized in the forming of recorded digital data bits in a data bit stream in an arcuate track on a photosensitive medium.